Sharing information is less and less our free choice. The society requires high visibility: those, who don't expose themselves become suspicious or excluded. But sharing is just the beginning. The real purpose behind it is profiling. Be that our insurance or health care scheme, unemployment benefit or school curriculum – more and more services depend not so much on who we are in reality, but on the quality of our digital profile. Who designs these algorithms? What business and political stakes are behind? Katarzyna Szymielewicz comments on contents of our digital profiles and its implications.

Winter 2022/2023 seems to be a spectacular time in the history of Artificial Intelligence. It is so even though the current hype is an effect of mass popularization rather than a real scientific revolution, which in this field began quite a while ago. With the rapid growth of new users of products based on generative AI (or GP AI), its potential to wreak havoc raises an increasing number of serious concerns.

We enter the final stage of the negotiations of the AI Act – the first comprehensive law regulating the development and implementation of artificial intelligence. The lack of transparency of the trilogue and intense corporate are reasons to worry. But fortunately – thanks to the efforts of civil society – there are also reasons for optimism. Will the AI Act eventually promote and protect fundamental rights and freedoms?

As the European Parliament gets ready to vote on the AI Act, we call on MEPs to put our fundamental rights first and protect the people affected by AI systems.

In our first attempt at a “transparency report”, we looked at what happens at the interface of Internet service providers and public authorities in Poland. Who sends requests for users' data? How many and for what purpose? What legal procedures are followed and what safeguards apply? Our pilot study includes analysis of legal provisions and collection of data from both major Internet Service Providers and public authorities. The report explains systemic problems that were identified in our research and that should be solved in order to ensure adequate standard of protection for individuals.